Physical media also fades over time, unfortunately. The most realistic solution is unironically digital piracy; “keep circulating the tapes” can keep digital media alive indefinitely. It’s not enough for the publisher to keep putting out copies, bootlegs are preservation, too.
It really pisses me off how many big games are coming out without physical release. I try to be understanding for indie titles, because it’s not an easy task, but bigger names have no excuse to not at least spin out one run of physical copies for collectors and people without reliable internet.
Didn’t Ubisoft make a statement afterwards that they would not be deleting accounts that have game purchases?
The title is a bit click-baity. Even the article acknowledges that Ubisoft has stated they won’t be deleting accounts that have purchased games. That’s no excuse not to take precautions, of course, but it feels a bit like fearmongering, and the world has far too much of that these days.
But they show up in the Ubi launcher as well. I think everything else I have in that launcher was a freebie from Ubi or Epic, as I do my best to not buy anything directly from them. It’d be nice if the presence of the steam-bought or epic-redeemed games is enough to protect all of them. But who really knows with this company?
edit: ah, I see this answer now, that seems fine then… hopefully
Additionally, DRM means that having a physical copy doesn’t mean anything in many cases unless you are using a crack. Old SecuROM games no longer work because the DRM server is offline. Once the servers are offline for modern games, the same thing will happen. There’s a reason so many games need their own launcher now or are always-online. Archive games, not because accounts will be deleted, but because modern copy protection and online integration will eventually make games impossible to play.
first, I don’t even want physical media. I’ve broken/lost a ton of physical media through just moving around.
second, this can’t even be fixed with physical media, because the problem is the digital media is locked through a service that can take the content away as it pleases. That’s the actual problem and is only fixed if there is no online verification component that can arbitrarily restrict access.
The physical media would still be affected by this.
So the answer is piracy. It’s the one circulation of digital copies where corporate decisions have little no influence on the accessibility or activation of those cracked games.
Or GOG. Seriously, if people rather pirate than support GOG, we’ll lose it. Over half of my games are from GOG and nowadays I don’t buy new games from elsewhere. I’ve also written a tool to download all your game installers. If you’ve got the money, support GOG.
I went back to look for my ignored account. (Had account details in my password manager.) It’s gone. Don’t remember what I had in there, to be honest. But, it is definitely gone. * shrug *
I don’t really care. But, I’m sure I won’t buy anything else from Ubisoft.
Physical is stupid though. Why waste so many resources and distribution(distribution wastes a lot of resources including gas, people time, vehicles and overproduction) when it can use the internet for basically no resources except electricity and fairly effective use of servers.
Then at least a download option. Even that is not provided in standard formats because people would pirate it. But renting stuff like now feels incredibly wrong.
This ties into site subscriptions as well, and streaming TV subscriptions. We don’t own anything anymore because we just rent it, and then the company can just remove our stuff when they feel like it.
100% agree that it’s time to stop accepting this. Piracy is also growing again, I wonder why…
Unfortunately I think it’s a losing battle. I’m not sure why the entire industry doesn’t do what Blizzard has done with D3/4 (ie: physical copy or not, it’s always online, validating your user and exposing you to mtx) but it seems to me that “resistance is futile” as more young players are normalized to it and it becomes the rule rather than the exception.
For my part, I generally refuse. But of course, the “generally” part is why they will all eventually succeed. There are games that always-online is more necessary because of multiplayer and shared world. There are also games where always-online is nothing more than naked capitalist bullshit. But who’s to say where it’s appropriate to draw that line? The players? Christ knows D4 isn’t hurting for money because they haven’t gotten mine.
So if you think that your single-player experience has no technical reason why it should be always-online, Blizzard’s just gonna be all: that’s just like… your opinion, man.
To be fair, at some point, a (big) digital game client will go down and it’s worth discussing the possibilities of that. There’s really no saying for sure how these companies will handle it, but all existing evidence suggests the worst. Every EULA for these services basically say that the user (not owner) has no real rights to these products. They are merely buying a license to use the given software that is revocable at the company’s discretion, and there’s no real incentive for them to go out of their way to make sure everyone has 100% access to every game they’ve ever paid for. They’d be more inclined to simply ignore it all, really.
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Physical media also fades over time, unfortunately. The most realistic solution is unironically digital piracy; “keep circulating the tapes” can keep digital media alive indefinitely. It’s not enough for the publisher to keep putting out copies, bootlegs are preservation, too.
My favorite part is when they send you a verification code for 2FA that must be used within 4 mins, but it takes 5 mins to be delivered.
Just wondering if it counts as staying active whenever Playnite auto updates all your game library sources.
I like to hate on Ubisoft as much as the next person, but hasn’t this already been disproved like a week ago? https://lemmy.world/post/2109249
You’re not looking for “physical”. You’re looking for “DRM-free”.
It really pisses me off how many big games are coming out without physical release. I try to be understanding for indie titles, because it’s not an easy task, but bigger names have no excuse to not at least spin out one run of physical copies for collectors and people without reliable internet.
Didn’t Ubisoft make a statement afterwards that they would not be deleting accounts that have game purchases?
The title is a bit click-baity. Even the article acknowledges that Ubisoft has stated they won’t be deleting accounts that have purchased games. That’s no excuse not to take precautions, of course, but it feels a bit like fearmongering, and the world has far too much of that these days.
I’d like to know if “game purchases” include games bought via Steam, or only games you buy directly through ubi’s storefront or launcher.
Games bought via Steam are covered under Steam’s TOS as far as I know.
But they show up in the Ubi launcher as well. I think everything else I have in that launcher was a freebie from Ubi or Epic, as I do my best to not buy anything directly from them. It’d be nice if the presence of the steam-bought or epic-redeemed games is enough to protect all of them. But who really knows with this company?
edit: ah, I see this answer now, that seems fine then… hopefully
https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]/t/269202/-/comment/1219633
Additionally, DRM means that having a physical copy doesn’t mean anything in many cases unless you are using a crack. Old SecuROM games no longer work because the DRM server is offline. Once the servers are offline for modern games, the same thing will happen. There’s a reason so many games need their own launcher now or are always-online. Archive games, not because accounts will be deleted, but because modern copy protection and online integration will eventually make games impossible to play.
I went back to look for my unused account. It’s gone. Don’t remember what I had in there, to be honest. But it is definitely gone. * shrug *
Two things
first, I don’t even want physical media. I’ve broken/lost a ton of physical media through just moving around.
second, this can’t even be fixed with physical media, because the problem is the digital media is locked through a service that can take the content away as it pleases. That’s the actual problem and is only fixed if there is no online verification component that can arbitrarily restrict access.
The physical media would still be affected by this.
So the answer is piracy. It’s the one circulation of digital copies where corporate decisions have little no influence on the accessibility or activation of those cracked games.
Or GOG. Seriously, if people rather pirate than support GOG, we’ll lose it. Over half of my games are from GOG and nowadays I don’t buy new games from elsewhere. I’ve also written a tool to download all your game installers. If you’ve got the money, support GOG.
I went back to look for my ignored account. (Had account details in my password manager.) It’s gone. Don’t remember what I had in there, to be honest. But, it is definitely gone. * shrug *
I don’t really care. But, I’m sure I won’t buy anything else from Ubisoft.
The solution is piracy, not physical copies
Or you know, gog.
I’d say the solution is no drm. Piracy is a workaround.
Physical is stupid though. Why waste so many resources and distribution(distribution wastes a lot of resources including gas, people time, vehicles and overproduction) when it can use the internet for basically no resources except electricity and fairly effective use of servers.
Then at least a download option. Even that is not provided in standard formats because people would pirate it. But renting stuff like now feels incredibly wrong.
This ties into site subscriptions as well, and streaming TV subscriptions. We don’t own anything anymore because we just rent it, and then the company can just remove our stuff when they feel like it.
100% agree that it’s time to stop accepting this. Piracy is also growing again, I wonder why…
Unfortunately I think it’s a losing battle. I’m not sure why the entire industry doesn’t do what Blizzard has done with D3/4 (ie: physical copy or not, it’s always online, validating your user and exposing you to mtx) but it seems to me that “resistance is futile” as more young players are normalized to it and it becomes the rule rather than the exception.
For my part, I generally refuse. But of course, the “generally” part is why they will all eventually succeed. There are games that always-online is more necessary because of multiplayer and shared world. There are also games where always-online is nothing more than naked capitalist bullshit. But who’s to say where it’s appropriate to draw that line? The players? Christ knows D4 isn’t hurting for money because they haven’t gotten mine.
So if you think that your single-player experience has no technical reason why it should be always-online, Blizzard’s just gonna be all: that’s just like… your opinion, man.
Blizzard’s solution is expensive and as many services (Pretty sure ubisoft included) have shown, fairly obstructive even for less savy users.
They usually can’t afford to put that much stress on the server to deliver the content
How is this false story still getting pushed to the top?
We literally just had a thread about it earlier this week. It was debunked.
The same story came up years ago, and it was debunked then too.
People will just believe anything these days.
And here’s the direct link from Ubisoft themselves.
https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/help/account/article/closure-of-inactive-ubisoft-accounts/000079595
I have not yet find evidence that Ubisoft will delete accounts with owned games and they claim they won’t so…
Yes, this has already been debunked by multiple sources. Not sure why they’re regurgitating this nonsense again.
To be fair, at some point, a (big) digital game client will go down and it’s worth discussing the possibilities of that. There’s really no saying for sure how these companies will handle it, but all existing evidence suggests the worst. Every EULA for these services basically say that the user (not owner) has no real rights to these products. They are merely buying a license to use the given software that is revocable at the company’s discretion, and there’s no real incentive for them to go out of their way to make sure everyone has 100% access to every game they’ve ever paid for. They’d be more inclined to simply ignore it all, really.
Read past the title.
“accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion”
Enough with this fear mongering.